I Refuse to be a Named Character

Part 4

"The antidote." I barely recognized the threatening sound that left my throat as my own voice.

Eric shook his head slowly. "I don't have one."

He's lying. No idiot would ever bring a poisoned blade without an antidote. What if he accidentally cut himself?

I needed to make him talk, and I didn't have time to be nice.

"Slash." I took out the Tarif and held it up for him to see. " I need a poison."

"Yes Miss." He grinned and tossed me a vial with a light blue tinge to it. Eric stared at me with wide eyes, trying to scramble away. I stomped down on his crotch, causing him to curl up with a howl of pain, as the bandits around me hissed with sympathy.

Before he could recover, I uncorked the vial, grabbed his chin and forced the contents into his mouth. Then, covering his nose and mouth with one hand, I punched his throat with the other, forcing him to reflexively swallow.

As he swallowed the poison, his face grew pale. I pulled out the antidote vial from my pocket once more, it still was half full. "Give me your antidote and I'll give you mine."

"..." He stared at me in consternation.

"Vicious. I like it." I heard Slash's approval behind me but ignored it, every ounce of my attention focused on the man in front of me.

"Quickly. Death from Slash's poison is extremely painful."

My words seemed to push him into action and he tore open his pant leg to reveal a hidden pocket with a small packet. "H-he has to swallow this." He was already shaking with pain, barely handing over the packet. "Now give me..."

"Not until I'm sure it works." I helped the barely conscious Luke swallow the granules in the packet, watching anxiously as his face slowly regained color. His eyes fluttered open, seeing me and smiling.

"You're here."

Reaching out, I touched his head, smoothing back his hair. "I'm here."

He whispered a word I hadn't heard before, the unfamiliar sounds tugging at my heart. Before I could ask it's meaning, however, he had already fallen unconscious. I looked him over, feeling panicked, but noted that his breathing seemed even and his color good.

The antidote was working. I sighed with relief.

"See... see he's cured! Now give me the antidote!" Eric's eyes were bulging, his entire body shaking as the pain from the poison increased.

"As I promised." I smiled, a cold expression, and opened the vial, dumping the contents on his head. "I've given you the antidote."

He stared at me in horror. "You... you lied!"

"I never promised to let you drink it." I stared back at him as he curled up in agony. "I warned you what would happen if you hurt him."

"Please."

"I made a promise."

"PLEASE!"

I turned away from him. "I keep my promises." Leaning down to look over Luke's condition, I ignored Eric's screams as they became weaker and weaker, fading into silence.

...

As I listened to him die, externally my face was calm, but on the inside I felt horrified. How much have I changed since coming to this world? My grim and violent actions disturbed me. How had I come so far from the girl who was disturbed even by written descriptions of violence to someone who wouldn't shy away from killing another person? I was slowly losing myself, becoming more and more the type of person who belonged in this terrible plot.